BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 189 
that the same bird occupies the nest continuously for twenty- 
four hours, and after the young are developed enough to make 
short flights, one parent at a time takes the special care of the 
brood while the other pursues its chase. 
At these times the smaller birds contribute no little to the 
daily supply. Snipe, sandpipers, plover, blackbirds, larks, 
sandwiched with frogs, snakes, etc., to crayfish and beetles. 
They must be driven by extreme hunger if ever they attack 
domestic fowls. The observing farmers soon learn to dis- 
tinguish them from the Red-tails by their consideration for 
their poultry, as well as their stronger predilection for the 
woods. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Wing coverts from the flexure to the body fine bright rufous; 
breast and other lower parts of body paler orange-rufous, 
many feathers with transverse bars and spots of white which 
predominate on the abdomen and under tail coverts; entire 
upper parts brown, on the head mixed with rufous, and with 
white spots on the wing coverts, shorter quills and rump; quills 
brownish-black with white spots on the outer webs, with bars 
of a lighter shade of brown, and white on their inner webs; 
tail brownish-black with about five transverse bands of white, 
and tipped with white. 
Length (female), 21 to 23; wing, 14; tail, 5. 
Habitat, eastern North America. 
BUTEO SWAINSONI Bonaparte. (342.) 
SWAINSON’S HAWK. 
Unlike either the Red-tailed or the Red-shouldered, this 
hawk is essentially a prairie bird. It is never met with in 
either of its migrations; or if so too infrequently to have 
attracted the attention of reliable observers who have noted 
it in the southern counties of the States, notwithstanding they 
extend their excursions occasionally into almost every open 
district I have visited. 
I have never obtained it earlier than the first of May, but I 
have not visited the sections where it is ordinarily easiest 
found, so early as that, which leads me to suppose that it may 
arrive some earlier than that date. I confess that itis at best 
but a conjecture, but Iam strongly inclined to believe that the 
larger portion of Swainson’s Hawks come in from the west or 
southwest, as they are invariably found in the northwestern 
parts of the State before an occasional individual is seen in the 
latitude of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They choose trees in 
